It’s hard to beat last year’s Halloween costume picture:
But, you add in an extra kiddo and this year’s picture is in competition!
What do you do when you watch a little boy a couple times a week as a stay-at-home mom? Dress them all up in costumes and take pictures! Too much fun! 
We have a business park behind our house that contains the most beautiful maple trees. It is a perfect place to go for a walk, collect leaves, and jump in puddles . I love where I live and my job! Days where I have nothing to do best go for a walk and collect fall leaves are what being a stay-at-home mom is all about!
This summer I got the notion in my mind that it was time to get to boys to swim lessons. I really wanted them to be comfortable in the water and confident enough to pull themselves up if they fell in the pond behind our house. Overall, I wanted them to have a fighting chance if something happened in the water.
Our original lessons were delayed to a fall session because of Seth’s ear tubes being infected, which ended up being a blessing because the separation anxiety from when we went to Hawaii in July was subsiding by the time September rolled around. The boys were pumped, I was pumped. They dressed in their finest swim wear. We packed the swim bag. We previewed the pool the day before so that they would know what to expect. We speculated whether it would be a girl teacher or a boy teacher. It looked like it would be a great success…
They day finally arrived, and got we to the pool nice and early. We sat down on the bench by the pool and saw that our teacher was going to be a boy. And then they FREAKED. Afraid of the water? Nope. Just afraid that I wasn’t in the water with them; afraid that I was going to leave them.
So there I was: by the side of pool with the only two screaming in the entire pool and with two high school age swim instructors urging me to put them in the pool, screaming or not, and walk away to the stands. “We do this all the time,” one said. “I had a girl who screamed every lesson for a week,” the other said. What a nightmare. I just didn’t feel right just abandoning them to cry in the water, though (for their sakes, my hurting hearts’ sake, and for the other kids’ sake). So I sat on the bench by the pool and tried every trick in the book to coerce them into that pool—to no avail. Lesson #1 all they ended up doing was jumping in the pool at the end.
Lesson #2 rolled around and I was dreading it as much as Seth and Sam. This time, however, I got them into the pool (and they had a great time) by telling them that I’d sit on the bench by the pool. The success was short lived, though, because I was told that I HAD to sit in the stands. “It’s better for the kids,” the high schooler told me again. Sigh. Because they know what’s best for a three year old, right?
Lesson #3 still lots of tears. I was ready to throw in the towel by the fourth lesson. Then, finally, a old parenting scheme worked for me: reverse psychology. As the boys started fussing when we walked out to the pool, I simply told them, “You don’t have to go in. Then only thing you had to do to be obedience to Mama is sit on the side of pool with your feet in. That way you can at least learn from what Mr. Reuben is saying.” My theory was that once they stopped crying and saw how much fun the other kids were having, they would want to join in. And it worked! Within minutes they went in the pool, and had a blast!
The final six lessons weren’t without their little anxieties, but each time, I just told them that they only had to put their feet in the pool and within minutes they were swimming. Their teacher, Reuben, was wonderful with them. By the end they were putting their head in the pool, opening their eyes under water, back floating a bit and way more comfortable in the water. I was thankful that I persevered through the frustrating (and embarrassing) lessons!
(Darn, forgot to change the name on that collage…it’s Sam, not Seth on the second collage)
Ben decided that I needed to mention the weather in our blog, so that we can remember this amazing summer/fall. It made me think that we have a lot of little things to mention and update about. (Sorry, prepare yourself for more words, less pictures—this blog is our journal of life that we want to remember—and of course pictures to showcase those cute twins of ours!)
The Weather: I read in today’s paper that we’ve had a record for no rainfall in the Portland Metro area. There has been no measurable rainfall for all of July, August, and September. Today’s October 12, and it’s our first measurable rainfall!! Wow! Portland fall, you have out done yourself! It kind of feels good to be snuggled up on the couch in sweats and sweater listening to the rain on the roof. I finally broke down this afternoon and turned on the heater for the first time since this spring, because our house was a frigid 63.5.
Football Season: Not kidding you: Sam and Seth took half an hour to get on all their “gear” to go outside and play football (helmet on, oops, forgot my jersey, helmet off, jersey on, gloves on, oops, can’t put my helmet on with the gloves, gloves off, helmet on…etc…etc..etc.). Then they played for less than five minutes. And all the gear got taken off and strewn around the house. Silly boys. Their newest addition to their football uniforms: mouth guards as illustrated by this picture:
The Best Daddy Ever: I know I’ve mentioned it a lot, but it words never seem to suffice in telling how great a father Ben is. The other evening he was relating to me how awesome it is that he can go outside in the evenings as it’s getting dark, to play football and wrestle with the boys. (He is following in his Dads’ example, because he has amazing memories of doing this himself.) He comes home from commuting and long days of work, and plays, and plays, and plays. I love the sound of laughter, bull rides, wrestling, and general boyness in our house each evening. I tried to take an artist picture of the view out my window while I was doing dinner dishes the other night, and this not-so-great picture was what a I got:
Food Allergies: I had mentioned that I was going to do an entire blog post on food allergies, and I had a partial post written up. You know what, though? A couple weeks into the whole process, I had a turning point where I decided that I would not let it rule my life and wasn’t going to complain about them. Food allergies doesn’t deserve it’s own blog post. So the short version: I have food allergies to wheat/gluten, all dairy, and egg. I’m going on 9 weeks of not eating even a single bite of any of it. And life is still going on just wonderfully. My body is starting to heal, I’ve cut my reflux medicine in half, my excema and acne have improved, my energy is better, and I’ve learned a lot about food. In fact, in many ways I’m thankful for these food allergies because it’s opened my eyes to many of the pitfalls of the commercialized, processed, preservative food world (would you believe that Mrs. Butterworth’s maple syrup doesn’t have an ounce of maple in it?). As a family we’re now eating as little processed goods as possible, and I’m working on adjusting to buying as much as our pocket book can handle of organics. We also got the boys tested for food allergies, because Seth’s been on reflux medicine for about 6 months now and was still having tummy aches as well as behavior/concentration problems (and because sleep issues are another symptom of food allergies and we’ve had a myriad of them!). Their test results came back a couple of weeks ago, and surprise, surprise: they are both also allergic to wheat and gluten. My husband I laughed that we can tell how far we’ve came as a family on food allergies because we were rejoicing that it was “just” gluten! Trust me, having a gluten free house is MUCH easier than giving up dairy! Anyways, we have food allergies. I spend lots of my days on allergy free cooking blogs and in the kitchen cooking new things. We’ve made a lot of changes. But God is good and so much bigger than food!
Playing in the Dirt: The boys have been in one of my favorite stages: the making dirt into food stage. They spend literally hours making pretend food out of dirt, rocks, grass and leaves. I had saved a whole bag of old food containers, spice jars, etc, and you would have thought the boys were in heaven with new food stuff! It makes for some VERY dirty little boys, but I love it!
The Tattling Phase: “Mom, Seth said…” “Mama, Sammy’s pretending to spank me…” Ugh. Questions and tattling all at once? Can I handle this? One thing I’ve found intriguing about the tattling phase in our house is the roles it’s created. Sam is 90% of the time the tattler, which indicates that Seth 90% of the time is the bugger. It’s the first time that these kind of roles have been so defined for the boys as twins.
Canning: This fall has been the most food preserving I’ve ever done. I ended up with around 15 quarts each of pears, peaches, and applesauce. That’s a lot of food cutting! I’m so thankful that my dear friend Katie Willard was there to do a lot of it with me! We had a blast chatting while cutting, and laughing as we we tried to get through canning while continually forgetting to do things and parenting three toddlers.
I know that I’m not alone in my sentiments of loving fall. It really is the BEST season. My favorite things about fall aren’t just the leaving turning or the crispness in the air, but all the memories that are included. As soon as I smell that wonderful crisp fall smell, I think of my volleyball days; oh how I loved my volleyball days! But those are long gone, and now the smell means walk with Seth and Sam gathering leaves, fire pits in the back yard with my hubby, canning and making applesauce, and hunting time. And while I don’t actually hunt (only my hubby does), it means a fall trip to my in-laws house in Dufur. We pack up the car and drive through the beautiful Gorge as the leaves are turning, watch Caleb and Levi’s football games, pick apples, go on walks in the woods, and I pack up all my scrapbooking stuff because my mom-in-law graciously takes care of Seth and Sam while I scrapbook! Doesn’t that all sound magical?
First, we watched the football games. Levi is the starting center for his team, and Seth and Sam thought it was pretty cool that he gets to hike the ball every time!
I’m pretty sure that this is the warmest that it’s ever been for hunting season. The implications of this were that the leaves were really crunchy when trying to quietly stalk deer and that my husband’s hunting outfit was absolutely atrocious. I really can’t stop laughing when I see him wearing this:
We visited “Paradise Tree” which is an apple tree standing alone in the middle of a field that has a unbelievable yield of apples, especially since it receives NO care. Diane and I picked four bags chalk full of wonderful apples that I’m still working on making into applesauce. You can’t beat this view while picking apples:
As fun as two weekends ago was, I must mention this past weekend as well, because it was equally as fun and relaxing. Ben didn’t get a deer the first weekend of hunting (or the second weekend either…sorry Ben!), so he took the boys back to Dufur and I stayed home! Yep! All by myself! It was so wonderful! I’m so thankful for a husband who is willing to give me breaks and alone time, and Grandparents who are willing to help out.
What did I do with all my free time? I have to admit a bit of how pathetic I am: when Ben and the boys left on Friday evening, I did not spend a fun evening out with girlfriends. Nope. I borrowed my neighbors steam carpet cleaner and stayed up until 10:30 cleaning our carpets. I know, pathetic. But such a thrill for this stay-at-home-mom whose carpets were nasty, and who never has a good amount of time to clean them and let them dry before the troops run all over them. They look so wonderful! Don’t worry, though, I did do some fun stuff. I went to Bob’s Red Mill with my friend Amy (they have great bulk bins with gluten free flours) and had lunch out with her. Then I drove down to the Woodburn outlets (because I could) and had a very successful shopping trip, finding not one, but two pairs of pants, several shirts, and good discount clothes for the boys. I watched a couple chick flicks with my scrapbooking stuff spread all over the living room floor (because there were no little feet to step all over them) and continued to work on my Europe scrapbooking. I listened to music, but also enjoyed lots of peace and quiet. I got up 15 minutes before I needed to leave for church, but still could get there in time because I only had to get myself ready. I didn’t do any dishes and ate snacky food for almost meal. I tried not to rush through anything. I got refreshed and ready for this week. Ah…sweet, sweet weekend to myself. Thank you husband for letting me have a break so that I can be a better wife and mother!
